Midrash and Postmodern Inquiry

Parallels to the midrashic tradition of interpretation can be found in the postmodern "new paradigm" social science research models of Torbert, Reason and Rowan (1981). These research models emphasize 1) a community process, 2) an open rather than closed field of research, 3) the development of an "inter-penetrating" attention and 4) a spiral rather than a closed circle of hermeneutical inquiry. Coward¹s study of orality in scripture (1988) also notes differences in effect between text-receptor and hearer-response when a shift from written to oral hermeneutics occurs. Following on the ideas of Elul (1985), Coward suggests a possible return from the visual sense of text as external object to the oral-aural sense of scripture as subjective, living word.

Placing the ancient hermeneutical tradition in dialogue with that of the postmodern "new paradigm," suggests the possible development of an "hermeneutic of indeterminacy" when dealing with Biblical traditions. Such a hermeneutic would explore the boundaries of text, receptor-hearer, and the inter-subjective phenomenology of interpretation. Preliminary examples of the process in demonstration are cited (Douglas-Klotz, 1995).